In this collection, the Charles Close Society has accumulated a wealth of diverse materials, now surplus to the requirements of Ordnance Survey itself, and outside the scope of (or duplicate to) what is accepted by The National Archives.
Incomplete sequences of the following publications are present: annual reports (1954-95), catalogues of maps (1924, 1967-2000), descriptions of Ordnance Survey maps (small, medium and large scales) (1919-57), professional papers (1929-81), parliamentary papers, publicity ephemera, price lists, gazetteers. There is also a set of the Report on the Ordnance Survey as affected by the war (1914-19).
More for internal or trade use are Map news &/and review (1971-89), Agents’ bulletin (1967-71), Publication news (1991-96), Ordnance Survey Information leaflets (1985-90), Information paper (1985-2001), OS news (1992-94), Viewpoint (1994-96), OS leaflet (1933-36, 1975-80), Press release (1984, 86), OS trade information (ca 1998), as well as publication reports (1962-63), sequences of availability diagrams, publication lists of large scale maps, digital data, including SUSI.
Matters of policy are covered by consultative papers (1984-92), consultative committee papers (1984-94), a very important sequence of policy statements (1955-60), Ordnance Survey plan / five year plan / corporate plan (1983-94), and some minutes of Director General’s conferences (1997-2001)
Technical matters are covered by Technical bulletin (1960-66), Bulletin (1967-76), Photogrammetric review (1950-54), Surveyors instructions (1976-91), Notes for candidates for technical examination (1949-73), Training series (1931), Drawing Committee minutes and reports (1960-72), in addition to a wealth of papers, offprints, brochures, reports, experiments concerning new techniques in surveying and printing maps. There are also some fine examples of map drawing exercises.
There are many technical books, including The Red Book (1952, 1963), The Biscuit Book (1966), The Blue Book (1969), with a large collection of amendment pages, School of Military Survey (SMS) modules (1966-70), projection tables.
The archive is particularly rich in documentation relevant to field work and map making generally. Present are card catalogues and the master files (familiarly known as job files) controlling the work on each sheet in the one-inch Seventh Series (1948-78), 1:50,000 First Series (1971-86), ten mile maps (1939-88), half-inch maps, including Second Series (1939-77), quarter-inch Fifth Series (1954-80), district maps (1938-73), 1:100,000 administrative maps (1965-70), and modern period maps (1948-82). There are representative examples of butt joint (BJ) printing plates, detail traverse books (1947-49), areas computation / measurement books (1953-55, 1985-87), field content books (1944-53), DU reports (1973-76), field work documents, field revision diagrams, documentation dealing with administrative areas, and boundary changes, drawing instructions, test reports, flying programme, instruction and correspondence files, map production test group - tasks, specifications.
There are also examples of map making processes: proof maps, some testing variant colour schemes, film positives, revision sheets, colour charts, specimens of type, Landranger, Outdoor Leisure and Tourist map cover cards (1990s), and, in photocopy, an important collection of Ordnance Survey’s Archaeology Branch (later Division) materials (1923-60), including incomplete and unpublished maps, some of them casualties of the war.
Some maps are held, including record collections of ten-mile Planning Series maps (1942-88), quarter-inch Fifth Series (1957-78), quarter-inch Sixth Series / Routemaster (1978-81), 1:25,000 Provisional Edition prototypes and specimen sheets (1943-67), a group of Archaeology Division six-inch field sheets (1955) for Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire; there is also a large accumulation of indexes for maps at most scales, and other ephemera, such as conventional sign cards.
Other holdings include books written about the Ordnance Survey, a photocopy of the Day Book (1827-49) (original in TNA (PRO) OS 3/279), and a copy of the Ordnance Survey Library catalogue (1952).
Further Ordnance Survey papers may be located in other collections in the archive